As a general rule I do not dress up my dogs in clothes. Not because I do not believe in it or don't like it, as a matter of fact I think they can look quite adorable. But recently after shaving down one of my Tzus, I discovered he was cold and, his comfort necessitated that he was covered. And since I did not have any t-shirts handy, I had nothing to put on him. So I set about finding something he could use as a t-shirt, and I wanted to it to be fast and easy.

Here is what I came up with. I had an old pair of pajama bottoms that were knit and had a bit of stretch to it . I used the bottom half of the pant leg since it was narrower. I measured my dog from the back of his neck to the length I wanted, in this case it was 11 1/2 " and cut one of the pj's leg to that measurement. So, essentially, I had a tubular piece of material. I determined what end of the tubular material would be used at his neck ( I chose the narrower)Then I measured the distance from his neck to his front legs, took that same measurement and I cut holes on the on each side for his legs. On the part of the tubular material that would be worn on his underneath side, I cut a "v"-shape to prevent him from urinating on his t-shirt.I suppose if I had wanted to I could have finish all the edges, but I was in a hurry and needed something real fast and easy. Just for reference, Rascal weighs 16 lbs, so you may have to make minor adjustments if your Shih Tzu is smaller.

So now I'm on a roll wondering what else I could whip up fast , easy and economical. I went to the infant section of my local Walmart, and picked up this "T" for $3.00, size 0-3 months. Here is how I repurposed it for my dog.

Here is a front veiw

I wanted to experiment with a dress for my female Shih Tzu. I went to my local thrift store and bought this little infants dress in size 12 months, for only $1.75. My female weighs about 7 lbs so I did need to cut off some excess material